American Edition of the British Encyclopedia: Or, Dictionary of ..., Volumen6

not so agreeable, for it will taste of the wax. The best sort of French virgin honey is that of Languedoc, called honey of Narbonne. It should be new, thick, granulated, of a clear transparent white colour, of a soft and somewhat aromatic smell, and of a sweet and lively taste. If it is very pure, it is almost as hard as sugar-candy; and what renders it so superior, are the many aromatic flowers which grow in those parts, and from which the bees gather their honey. It is always observable that the honey made in mountainous countries is more highly flavoured than that of low grounds. The honey made in the spring is more esteemed than that gathered in the summer; that of the summer more than that of the autumn. There is also a preference given to that of young swarms. Yellow honey is obtained by pressure from all sorts of honeycombs, old as well as new ; and even of those from whence the virgin honey has been extracted. They break the combs, and heat them with a little water in basins or pots, keeping them constantly stirring ; they then put them into bags of thin linen cloth, and these they put in a press, to squeeze out the honey. The wax stays behind in the bag, though always some particles of it pass through with the honey. Honey is the production of most countries ; yet more abundant in the island of Candia, and in the greater part of the islands of the Archipelago, than any where else. The Sicilian honey seems to be particularly high flavoured, and in some parts of the island even to surpass that of Minorca; which no doubt is owing to the quantity of aromatic plants with which that country is overspread. This honey is gathered three times in the year, in July, August, and October. It is found by the peasants in the hollow of trees and rocks. The country of the lesser Hybla is still, as formerly, the part of the islaud that is most celebrated for this article. Considerable quantities of honey are produced by the wild bees in the woods of North America. HoNEY comb, a waxen structure full of cells, framed by the bees, to deposit their honey and eggs in. The construction of the honey-comb seems one of the most surprising part of the works of insects, and the materials of which it is composed, which, though evidently collected from the flowers of plants, yet do not, that we know of, exist in them in that form, has given great cause of speculation to the curious. The origin and formation of the wax has been lately discovered. It is se.

creted by the peculiar organization of the insect, in the form of small and thin oval scales, in the incisures or folds of the abdomen. The regular structure of the comb is also equally wonderful. When the several cells in it are examined, it should seem that the nicest rules of geometry had been consulted for its composition, and all the advantages that could be wished or desired in a thing of that kind are evidently found in it. Each cell consists of six plane sides, which are all trapeziums, but equal to each other: the bottom of the cell is contrived with three rhombuses, so disposed as to constitute a solid angle umder three equal angles, and each of which is double the maximum angle of 34° 44'. Hence it comes to pass, that a less quantity of surface is sufficient to contain a given quantity of honey than if the bottom had been flat, in the proportion of 4,658 to 5,50 as has been found by calculation ; that is, nearly a fifth of the whole, so far as the figure in the end of the cells extends in each : which fifth part of wax and labour saved amounts to a vast deal in the whole comb. And if these admirable insects knew their advantage, they could not more nicely observe the rules of modern geometry. The method of making two sorts of cells in each comb is also admirably contrived to save the expense of wax ; since, had they been made single, every comb must have had its peculiar base, and every set of cells their bottom of wax, whereas one bottom serves now for two cells ; and there is but one plate of wax in the centre of a double comb. This structure occasions a very great sparing of the wax, or matter of the comb ; but besides this, there is another great advantage resulting from this structure, which is, that the angles arising from the forementioned combination of the bases greatly strengthen the whole work. The sides of the cells are all much thinner than the finest paper, and yet they are so strengthened by their disposition, that they are able to resist all the motions of the bee within them, as they are frequently obliged to be. The effect of their thrusting their bodies into the cells would be the bursting of those cells at the top, were not these well guarded against. But to prevent this, the creatures extend a cord, or roll of wax, round the verge of every cell, in such a manner, that it is scarce possible they should split in that particular part. This cord or roll is at least three times as thick as the sides of the cell, and is even much thicker and stronger at the angles of the cells than elsewhere, so that the aperture of each cell is not regularly hexagonal, though its inner cavity be perfectly so. The several combs are all placed parallel to one another, and there is such a space left between them, that the bees can easily pass; and often they place a part of the comb in a contrary direction to the rest, so that while the others are placed horizontally, these stand perpendicularly. The cells which have served, or are to serve, for the habitation of the worms of the common and of the male bees, are of. ten made also at other times the receptacles of honey; but though these are indifferently made to serve either use, there are others destined only to receive honey. The celerity with which a swarm of bees, received into a hive where they find themselves lodged to their minds, bring their works of the comb to perfection, is amazing. There are vast numbers at work all at once; and that they may not incommode one another, they do not work upon the first comb till it is finished, but when the foundation of that is laid, they go to work upon another, so that there are often the beginnings of three or four stories made at once, and so many swarms allotted to the carrying on the work of each. HoNEY stone. See MELLITE. HONOUR, in law, is used especially for the more noble sort of seigniories on which other inferior lordships or manors depend, by performance of some customs or services to those who are lords of then. Before the statute 18 Edward I. the King’s greater barons, who had a large extent of territory holden under the crown, frequently granted out smaller manors to inferior persons, to be holden of themselves; which therefore now continue to be held under a superior lord, who is called in such cases the lord paramount over all these manors; and his seigniory is frequently termed an honour, not a manor, especially if it has belonged to an ancient feudal baron, or been at any time in the hands of the crown. When the King grants an honour with appurtenances, it is superior to a manor with appurtenances; for to an honour, by common intendment, appertain franchises, and by reason of those liberties and franchises, it is called an honour. HoNoun, courts of There is a court of honour of earl marshal of England, &c. which determines disputes concerning precedency and points of honour. HoNouns, military; all armies salute crowned heads in the most respectful

manner, colours and standards dropping, and officers saluting. Different ranks of officers are saluted in a different mode. HoNouns of war, are stipulated terms which are granted to a vanquished enemy, and by which he is permitted to march out of a town, from a camp, or line of entrenchments, with all the insignia of military etiquette. In another sense, they signify the compliments which are paid to great personages, military characters, when they appear before an armed body of men, or such as are given to the remains of a deceased officer. The particular circumstances attending the latter depend greatly upon the usages of different countries. HOOK, a piece of iron or brass wire bent, and turned up at one end. Hook pins, are bolts made with a shoulder at one end, and used by carpenters in framing : these are drove through the mortices and tenons of the work prepared for building or wharfing. HOOPOE, upupa, in ornithology. See Up UPA. HOPEA, in botany, so named in honour of Dr. Hope, professor of botany at Edinburgh, a genus of the Polyadelphia Polyandria class and order. Natural or. der of Guaiacanae, Jussieu. Essential character: calyx five-cleft, superior; corolla five-petalled; stamens many, connected in five bodies; style one ; drupe with a three-celled nut There is only one species, viz. H. tinctoria, a native of Carolina. HOP, in botany. See HUMULUs. Hops are said to have been first brought into England from the Netherlands, in the year 1524. They are first mentioned in the English statute-book in the year 1552, viz. in the 5th and 6th Edw. VI. cap. 5, and by an act of parliament of the first ear of King James I. anno 1603, cap. 18, it appears that hops were then produced in abundance in England. The hop being a plant of great importance in this country, we shall briefly consider what relates to the culture and management of it under distinct heads. As for the choice of soil, the hop-planters esteem the richest and strongest ground the most proper; and if it is rocky within two or three feet of the surface, the hops will prosper well; but they will by no means thrive on as iff clay or spongy wet land. Hops require to be planted in a situation so open, as that the air may freely pass round and between them, to dry up and dissipate the moisture, whereby they will not be so subject to fire-blasts, which often destroy the middle of large plantations, while the
outsides remain unhurt. The hills should be eight or nine feet asunder, that the air may freely pass between thein. If the und is intended to be ploughed with orses between the hills, it will be best to lant them in squares, chequerwise; but if the ground is so small that it may be done with the breast-plough or spade, the holes should be ranged in a quincunx form. Which way soever you make use of, a stake should be stuck down at all the places where the hills are to be made. Persons ought to be very curious in the choice of the plants as to the kind of hop; for if the hop-garden is planted with a mixture of several sorts of hops that ripen at several times, it will cause a great deal of trouble, and be a great detriment to the owner. The two best sorts are the white and the grey bind; the latter is a large square hop, more hardy, and is the more plentiful bearer, and ripens later than the former. There is another sort of the white bind, which ripens a week or ten days before the common; but this is tenderer, and a less plentiful bearer; but it has this advantage, that it comes first to market. If there is a sort of hop you value, and would increase plants and sets from, the superfluous binds may be laid down when the hops are tied, o off the tops, and burying them in the hill; or, when the hops are dressed, all the cuttings may be saved, for almost every part will grow and become a good set the next spring. . As to the manner of planting the sets, there should be fine good sets planted in every hill, one in the middle, and the rest round about, sloping. , Let them be pressed close with the hand, and covered with fine earth, and the stick should be placed on each side the hill to secure it. When the hop ground is dug in January or February, the earth about the hills, and very near them, ought to be taken away with a spade, that you may come the more conveniently at the stock to cut it. About the end of February, if the hops were planted the spring before, or if the ground is weak, they ought to be dressed in dry weather; but else, if the ground is strong and in perfection, the middle of March will be a good time ; and the latter end of March, if it is apt to produce over rank binds, or the beginning of April, may be soon enough. Then having, with an iron picker, cleared away all the earth out of the hills, so as to clear the stock to the principal roots, with a sharp knife you must cut off all the shoots which grew up with the binds the last year; and also all the

young suckers, that none be left to run in the alley, and weaken the hill. It will be proper to cut one part of the stock lower than the other, and also to cut that part low that was left highest the preced. ing year. In dressing those hops that have been planted the year before, you ought to cut off both the dead tops and the young suckers which have sprung up from the sets, and also to cover the stocks : with fine earth a finger's length in thickness. About the middle of April the hops are to be poled, when the shoots begin to sprout up; the poles must be set to the hills deep into the ground, with a square iron picker or crow, that they may the better endure the winds: three poles are sufficient for one hill. These should be placed as near the hill as may be, with their bending tops turned outwards from the hill, to prevent the binds from entangling; and a space between two poles ought to be left open to the south, to admit the sun beams. As to the tying of hops, the buds that do not clasp of themselves to the nearest pole, when they are grown to three or four feet high, must be guided to it by the hand, turning them to the sun, whose course they will always follow. They must be bound with withered rushes, but not so close as to prevent them from climbing up the pole. This you must continue to do till all the poles are furnished with binds, of which two or three are enough for a pole, and all the sprouts and binds that you have no occasion for are to be plucked up ; but if the ground is young, then none of these useless binds should be plucked up, but should be wrapped up together in the middle of the hill. About the beginning of July the hops begin to blow, and will be ready to gather about Bartholomew tide. A judgment may be made of their ripeness by their strong scent, their hardness, and the brownish colour of their seed. When by these tokens they appear to be ripe, they must be picked with all the expedition possible; for if at this time a storm of wind should come, it would do them great damage, by breaking the branches, and bruising and discolouring the hops; and it is well known that hops, being picked green and bright, will sell for a third more than those which are discoloured and brown. The most convenient way of picking them is into a long square frame of wood, called a binn, with a cloth hanging on tenter hooks within it, to receive the hops as they are picked. The best method of drying hops is with charcoal on an oast, or kiln, covered with hair cloth, of the
same form and fashion that is used for drying malt. The hops must be spread even upon the oast, a foot thick or more, if the depth of the curb will allow it; but care is to be taken not to overload the oast, if the hops are green or wet. The oast ought to be first warmed with a fire before the hops are laid on, and then an even steady fire must be kept under them; it must not be too fierce at first, lest it scorch the hops; nor must it be suffered to sink or slacken, but rather be increased till the hops are nearly dried, lest the moisture or sweat, which the fire has raised, fall back or discolour them. When they have lain about mine hours they must be turned, and in two or three hours more they may be taken off the oast. . It may be known when they are well dried by the brittleness of the stalks, and the easy falling off of the hop leaves. As soon as the hops are taken off the kiln, lay them in a room for three weeks or a month, to cool, #. and toughen; for if they are bagged immediately, they will powder, but if they lie a while (and the longer they lie the better, provided they are covered close with blankets to secure them from the air) they may be bagged with more safety, as not being liable to be broken to powder in tread. ing ; and this will make them bear treading the better, and the harder they are trodden, the better they will keep. Hops. By several statutes, regulations are made for the curing of hops, &c. which are placed under the inspection of the officers of excise. HOPPER, a kind of basket, wherein the seed-corn is carried at the time of sowing. It is also used for the wooden trough in a mill, into which the corn is put to be ground. See Mill. HORARY, or Houn CIncle of a globe, is a small brazen circle, fixed upon the brazen meridian, divided into twenty-four hours, having an index moveable round the axis of the globe, which, upon turning the globe fifteen degrees, will show what places have the sun an hour before or after us; for instance, if the index of the hour circle be set at the upper x11. when the globe is rectified for London, and the globe turned fifteen degrees from east to west, the index will point at the hour of 1 ; which shews that all places under that meridian, and particularly Naples, have the sun an hour sooner than London has it: on the contrary, let the index be set at the upper xii. again, and the globe be turned fifteen degrees from

west to east, the index will point at x1. because all places under that meridian, particularly the Madeira islands, have the sun an hour after London has it. For the several problems performable on the globes, by means of the horary circle, see Globes, use of HoRAny circles or lines, in dialling, are the lines or circles which mark the hours on sun-dials. See DIALLING. Hon Any motion of the earth, the arch it describes in the space of an hour, which is nearly fifteen degrees, though not accurately so, as the earth moves with different velocities, according to its greater or lesser distance from the sun. Hence we see the method of reducing motion into time, and vice versa, since 15° = 60', or one hour, 1° = 4': therefore the clocks at places 15° east of London are one hour faster than those at London; and the clocks at places 15° west of London are one hour later than those at London, and so in proportion. Thus, if I wish to know what o'clock it is at Constantinople, and also at Boston in North America, now it is eight o'clock, A. M. here, I look to the gazetteer, and find Constantinople to be 29° east of London, and Boston is 70°30' west: to reduce these degrees to time, I

c ando =4'42m;accordingly the time at Constantinople is 1h 56m before our time, and at Boston it is 4” 42m behind it: that is, at eight o'clock in London it will be 56 minutes after nine at Constantinople, and at Boston it will be only 18 minutes past three o'clock.

HORD, in geography, is used for a company of wandering people, which have no settled habitation, but stroll about, dwelling in waggons or under tents, to be ready to shift as soon as the herbage, fruit, and the present province, is eaten bare ; such are several tribes of the Tartars, particularly those who inhabit beyond the Wolga, in the kingdoms of Astracan and Bulgaria. A hord consists of fifty, or sixty tents, ranged in a circle, leaving an open place in the middle. The inhabitants of each hord usually form a military company or troop, the eldest whereof is commonly the cap. tain,and depends on the general or prince

of the whole nation.

HORDEUM, in botany, barley, a genus of the Triandria Digynia class and order. Natural order of Grasses. Essential cha.
racter: calyx lateral, two-valved, one-flowered, by threes, at each toothlet of the rachis. There are nine species. HORIZON, in astronomy and geograhy, that great circle which divides the so and the earth into two equal parts, or hemispheres, distinguishing the upper from the lower. The horizon is either sensible or rational: the sensible horizon is that circle, which, being discovered by our senses, limits our prosect. When we are on terra firma, this circle commonly seems rugged and irregular, occasioned by the unevenness of the ground; but at sea, there are no such irregularities. The semi-diameter of this circle varieth according to the height of the eye of the observer. If a man, six feet high, stood upon a large plain, or the surface of the sea, he could not see quite three miles round. To find the distance to which a person can see, at any given height of the eye, or the extent of the visible horizon, is a problem of some utility, particularly to mariners: the rule is, “multiply the square root of the height of the eye in feet, by 1.225, and the product is the distance in miles to which we can see from that height;” thus a sailor, standing at the top-mast of a ship 120 feet high, can see a distance in miles = A/120x1.225=1345= to thirteen miles and a half nearly. The rational, or true horizon, is a great circle of the apparent celestial sphere, dividing it into two equal hemispheres, and serving as the limits of elevation or depression of celestial objects. This horizon being parallel to the sensible horizon, is distant from it by the semi-diameter of the earth, through whose centre it passes: for the astronomers reduce the appearance of the heavens to a spherical surface, which is not concentrical to the eye, but to the earth. It divides the heaven and earth into two parts, the one light, and the other dark, which are greater or lesser, according to the condition of the place, &c. . It determines the rising and setting of the sun, moon, or stars, in any particular latitude; for, when any of these appear just at the eastern part of the horizon, we say it rises; and when it does so at the western part, we say it sets. And from hence also the altitude of the sun or stars is accounted, which is their height above the horizon. This circle is divided by astronomers into four quadrants, or cardinal points. The poles of this horizon are the zenith and the nadir:

and the innumerable circlesdrawn through these poles to the horizon are called the vertical circles, or azimuths. These two horizons produced to the fixed stars will appear to coincide into one, since the earth compared to the sphere in which the fixed stars appear is but a point; therefore the two circles, which are but a point distant from each other, may be well considered as coinciding into one. HonizoN of a globe. See Globk. HORIZONTAL, something relating to the horizon; or that is taken in, or on a level with the horizon: thus we say, an horizontal plane, &c. It frequently happens at sea, that the atmosphere is so hazy as to prevent a distinct view of the horizon, which is a great hindrance to accurate observations. This inconvenience is remedied by an HoR1zoNTAL speculum, which consists in a well polished metal speculum, about three or four inches in diameter, inclosed within a rim of brass; so fitted, that the centre of gravity of the whole shall fall near the point on which it turns. This is the end of a steel axis running through the centre of the speculum, above which it finishes in a square, for the convenience of fitting a roller on it, by which it is set in motion by means of a piece of tape wound round the rollcr. The cup in which it turns is made of agate, flint, or other hard substance, and a cover to the whole may be made of glass; by this means an observation may be taken with it as well covered as open, which will prevent injury from the spray of the sea. These specula are as useful by night as by day; for as the images of the stars may be seen in the speculum, conseuently any object that can be seen re#. upon the glasses of the quadrants may be observed by the speculum, and these are all the stars of the first magnitude, the planets Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the Moon; so that by having the declinations of these bodies in the Nautical Almanack, or indeed in any ephemeris, they may be used in observations as well as the sun. HoR1zoNTAL dial, that drawn on a plane parallel to the horizon, having its style elevated according to the altitude of the poll, in the place it is designed for. See DIAL. HoR1zoNTAL line, in perspective, a right line drawn through the principal point parallel to the horizon; or, it is in the intersection of the horizontal and perspective planes. See PERspectivs.